Something Better Left Behind
by Lanie McCoy
Summary: Everyone has a little secret or a few. I have only one. I'll never tell it to anyone. But I might tell it to you…if you really want to know.


Disclaimer: I love yelling at campers. Especially the little bratty ones who won't shut up.

Note that this is from ANYONE'S perspective. Obviously, it's intended to be someone from Yû Yû Hakusho, and I admit I originally had someone specific in mind, but I won't tell you who because that would kind of defeat the purpose of using absolutely no names or specific references. So whoever you want to be saying this, it could be ANYONE. Your best friend, your cousin's hamster, that weird demon girl on the Gorenja Team during the Black Martial Arts Tournament…_anyone_.

Anyway, little ficlet because it was wracking my brain. Little tiny ficlet. 785 words. Go.

_Something Better Left Behind_

"We all have one thing or another we'd rather not."

"I have one."

"I have one, too."

That was about the end of things.

That's always about the end of things. Never once has someone confided in me his greatest fear, or his darkest secret, or the one thing he has that he'd rather not. Maybe there will be an attempt to pretend, usually something like "I have been afraid of dying since I was five," but that is either a fabrication (because not one of them has been afraid of such a thing for so long, if ever) or an outright lie (because such a thing is easier than admitting the truth). All I know for sure is that this "thing" everyone has is never physical. No one ever thinks of saying "I have an ugly toy I would rather not." Such things are disposed of easily, if desired.

Sometimes they come to me tired, emotionally or physically. Usually they come annoyed or angry and seeking advice from someone other than me who they cannot find and maybe do not know. They rant and snap and speak harshly of people they have only bumped into on the street once who somehow offended them, soon talking of irrelevant things and backtracking to the beginning every few minutes to create the illusion of a point. I never quite understand, but I sit quietly and nod at the right times. They leave thinking that coming to me was the right thing to do because they feel better. Only in secret do they decide that it was not me but them who lifted their mood up off the ground. I don't mind; I never mind. I never do anything.

If I wanted to, I could go to them in a great reversal, I suppose, but I never do. I tell my stupid fears and things to others in public fashions, never pretending that they are especially personal. Sometimes when I tell people these things, they like to feel special as they imagine I am divulging a part of myself to them, but it is never truly any part I would want back. I lock those things up safe inside myself and never think to let them go.

It is because I am cursed with the knowledge that all things are impermanent that it does not strike me to tell my real secret. I know that my private knowledge may become common someday, but I do not want it to be at any fault of my own. Truly I do not tell anyone because I see no purpose to it. They would deny any weight behind such a thing, claiming that they would never hurt me or that I would never do this or that no one could ever do that. They think—everyone does, that is, everyone thinks they can do _something_, and I know that if I was ever to tell my secret, they would imagine that they could assuage my fear with something casual, something with no reasoning behind it. I would rather have no comfort offered at all than receive such thoughtless assurance.

And what of these fears we harbor, what of this knowledge we keep? Why do we do such a thing, anyway? What purpose does it serve? Certainly it makes us feel as though we have something to hide; maybe some of us feel powerful, or some of us feel weak. I can't really say. There is no single answer. All I know is that everyone has _something_, and many people have more than one.

But whatever it is…

Well.

It may be something silly.

"I am afraid of going to the doctor's."

It may be something grave.

"I think I want to kill myself."

It may be something familiar.

"I have always wanted to belong."

But it has never been quite the same.

No one has ever thought to come to me and say the one thing that rots my trust in others each and every day. The one thing destroying my faith in the world. The one thing I try to tell myself is a lie, even when I know it is the closest thing to the truth I have ever heard. No one has ever said it, because no one has ever known to. But I think we all might. If given enough time, anyone might come to this conclusion, and then I would not be the only one. But even so, no one would ever think to mention it to me.

"When the time comes, you will decide that I am something better left behind."

Tell me when you've reached that day, please.

I'll be sure to say goodbye.


End file.
